Social Work Study Research Articles

ZNAČAJ KULTURNE KOMPETENTNOSTI ZA SOCIJALNI RAD

U radu su date problematizacija i analiza značaja kulturne kompetentnosti za socijalni rad, odnosno za praksu socijalnih radnika. Predstavljeni su koncepti i programi multikulturalizma i interkulturalizma kao šireg društvenog konteksta, a posebna pažnja posvećena je konceptu duboke kulture, kao i fenomenu interkulturnog učenja kao preduslovu za kulturno kompetentne prakse. Zatim se razmatraju sami fenomeni kulturne kompetentnosti i kulturno kompetentnih praksi, uz detaljno bavljenje potrebom za obrazovanjem (i postojanjem) kulturno kompetentnog socijalnog radnika.

Būsimų socialinių darbuotojų nuostatos į savanorišką veiklą: Lietuvos ir Suomijos patirtis

Šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje vis daugiau dėmesio skiriama savanoriškos veiklos praktikai, kuri sudaro galimybes sustiprinti turimus ir įgyti naujų socialinių gebėjimų, aktyviai dalyvauti visuomeninio gyvenimo veiklose. Dalyvavimo savanoriškoje veikloje pasirinkimą sąlygoja asmens turima patirtis bei asmeninės nuostatos. Straipsnyje analizuojama nuostatos samprata, apibūdinama savanoriška veikla socialinio darbo kontekste. Straipsnio turinyje nagrinėjamos būsimų socialinių darbuotojų nuostatos į savanorišką veiklą remiantis nuostatos kognityviniu, emociniu ir elgesio komponentais, lyginama respondentų iš Lietuvos ir Suomijos patirtis. Empirinio tyrimo metu nuostatos tyrinėjamos žvelgiant iš kognityvinio (pažintinio), afektinio (emocinio) ir elgesio komponentų perspektyvos. Kognityvinis komponentas – tai nuomonės, įsitikinimai, kurių laikomasi tam tikrų žmonių ir dalykų atžvilgiu. Afektinis komponentas apima malonias arba nemalonias emocijas, susijusias su įsitikinimais. Jos suteikia nuostatai emocinį atspalvį ir nulemia veiksmą, kurį ketiname įvykdyti. Šis veiksmas ir yra nuostatos elgesio komponentas, kuris sąlygoja asmens reakciją, atitinkančią jo įsitikinimus ir išgyvenimus. Pažinimo komponentai susideda iš asmens žinių apie nuostatos objektą. Žinios, informacija yra vienas iš nuostatas formuojančių veiksnių. Informacijos pateikimas apie nuostatos objektą keičia jo suvokimą, interpretaciją. Nuostatos pažinimo komponentas neatsiejamas nuo jausminės srities. Emocinis nuostatos komponentas gali skatinti arba slopinti pažintinės informacijos priėmimą ir, atvirkščiai, žinios turi įtakos emociniam komponentui. Platesnė, išsamesnė informacija mažina stereotipinių nuostatų formavimąsi.

‘Khaki Fever’ during the First World War: A Historical Case Study of Social Work's Approach towards Young Women, Sex and Moral Danger

‘Khaki Fever’ during the First World War: A Historical Case Study of Social Work's Approach towards Young Women, Sex and Moral Danger

A Bibliography of Randomized Controlled Experiments in Social Work (1949–2013)

A strong theme in the social work literature contends that randomized experiments are an impractical, inappropriate, unethical, and rarely undertaken research method for use in social work. In a test of this claim, the author undertook a review of the English-language published literature and prepared a provisional bibliography of primary social work studies that used experimental methodology. Astonishingly, over 740 such studies were located, with the first being published in 1949. The existence of this large experimental social work literature has been largely unrecognized, in part, because much of it has appeared in a diverse array of journals associated with other disciplines. It is no longer tenable to claim that experiments are either impractical or inappropriate as a social work research method of value in making causal inferences. This bibliography will be amended in coming years, and subsequent analyses of the types of problems and interventions, which are the focus of these studies, will add to the empirical foundations of social work practice.

Don’t Silence “the Dinosaurs”: Keeping Caution Alive With Regard to Social Work Distance Education

Distance education (DE) in social work programs and studies on its comparable effectiveness with face-to-face education continue to increase. Yet not all faculty are convinced of the results, and this study explores why. Three case studies indicate that reservations center on valuing the process of learning and nonverbal communication. Issues regarding duty of care to families to be served by future social workers primarily educated in a virtual classroom also matter significantly. The trend toward DE may be inevitable, but this does not mean that educators should not voice their concerns; their skepticism has merit, and they have a responsibility to be vocal.

Using Mobile Technology to Enhance Undergraduate Student Digital Information Literacy Skills: A Canadian Case Study

Learning essential information literacy skills through the use of mobile phones is an innovative mlearning pilot project that was collaboratively undertaken in a Canadian university college over the course of two academic terms by faculty and the library staff. The research pilot project involved ninety one undergraduate students in five different classes majoring in psychology, social work, education or social development studies in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of using mobile technology to enhance students’ information literacy skills and learning experiences. Pre and post-test measures, and survey questionnaires generated quantitative and qualitative data that was analyzed to determine the degree of changes in frequency of mobile device information literacy access and fluency in digital literacy skills. The article highlights the Mobile Information Literacy innovation and includes the development and design of the mobile lessons, interactive exercises, and its applications. The study’s main results and conclusions are also discussed. Additionally, the successes and challenges of the pilot to support anytime, anywhere student mobile information literacy eLearning training that engages mobile learners and enhances their learning experience are identified and critically reflected upon to improve the innovation for stage two of the project.

An Overview of the Use of Mechanical Turk in Behavioral Sciences

Crowdsourcing is a process in which a firm parcels out work to a “crowd” and offers payment for anyone within the crowd who completes the task determined by that firm. A growing number of behavioral scientists have begun using the Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to facilitate their research and practice, but there is apparently not one academic study in social work reporting the use of crowdsourcing tools. Social work professionals have the responsibility to use research findings to improve practice, policy, and social service delivery. This article aims to (i) provide an overview of MTurk; (ii) review specific uses of MTurk in business, psychology, health care, and education; and (iii) discuss the possible applications of MTurk for social work.

La cuestión social y su articulación con el trabajo social

La cuestion social se configura como una categoria en el estudio del trabajo social. Para su comprension y articulacion con este, es necesario partir del analisis de acontecimientos historicos-sociales que datan del siglo xix y que motivan no solo su origen, sino incluso el desarrollo mismo de la profesion de trabajo social. Se pretende entonces resaltar las condiciones en las que surge y evoluciona el trabajo social, el contexto sociohistorico en el cual se hizo visible, la relacion que establece con las manifestaciones de la cuestion social, la relacion entre esta y el orden burgues. Ello es necesario si se quiere desmitificar ese vinculo estricto con las protoformas del servicio social. Igualmente, se retoma una de las vertientes de la cuestion social, denominada por Castel como benefico-asistencial, en tanto permite comprender el componente filantropico asistencial que se le ha atribuido a la profesion en sus inicios

Ingredients for Criminality Require Genes, Temperament, and Psychopathic Personality

Background and methodRecent and emerging research demonstrates the importance of genetic factors, temperament, and psychopathic personality for understanding criminality especially more severe forms of it. Drawing on diverse interdisciplinary research, we review recent studies in behavior genetics, child development, psychology, social work, criminology, and other areas that bear on serious criminality. ResultsWe suggest that genes, temperament, and psychopathic personality are the root ingredients of criminality and underscore the importance of a wide range of topics including neurobehavioral disorders, personality disorder, aggression, violence, and crime. ConclusionSimilar to debates in psychology and psychiatry, we encourage further research on the basic constitutional foundation of criminality as a means to guide theory and research in criminology and criminal justice.

Involvement of Students in an Integrated Course of Action in the Field of Eating Disorders in the Life Cycle.

Involvement of students in an integrated course of action in the field of eating disorders in the life cycle Lecture representative of a unique project in the area of ??expanding the awareness of eating disorders in early childhood feeding among parents and professionals, caregivers, infants and toddlers. This is an innovative project created by the collaboration between the Academy – and the Eating Disorder ambulatory clinic at the hospital. The populations in treatment are babies and young toddlers with feeding and eating disorders. Graduate students in clinic social work study this course as well as involved in the community for the purpose of study initial diagnosis and raising awareness among the different populations. Activity will be carried out by students and various communities such as clinics, pediatric primary care clinics, day care centers and kindergartens. In the community will use various practices to influence and achieve the desired change. Intervention shall be informal conversations, observations, discussion with parents and children, as well as with teachers and Nurses. Academic activities include training of students, reviewing their positions by research to be performed before the start of training and at the end of training and operations. The lecture will focus on the processes that students go through the community as well as customers. The model included teaching, research and community activities to promote a change. The lecture will include a report on the results of the study as well as the demo movies. Conjunctions Feeding and Eating Disorders Consciousness Diagnosis

Integrating Education, Research, and Practice in Gerontological Social Work: Lessons Learned From the Reclaiming Joy Peer Support Program

The practice-to-research gap has been attributed to many factors, including differing goals and priorities, differing knowledge bases and skill sets, and lack of recognition of limits of agency and community resources. Although many scholars have called for more collaboration between educators, researchers, and practitioners, these challenges can make collaboration difficult. The authors illustrate how the application of the strengths perspective, by acknowledging and building on the strengths and goals of researchers, practitioners, and educators, can help to mitigate some of the barriers that contribute to the research–-practice gap and to create more relevant research. The Reclaiming Joy Peer Support Program is offered as a case study in gerontological social work to demonstrate how the strengths perspective can be applied in a real-life research setting.

Migrant families as effective buffers against discrimination: The perceived work–care conflict and household conditions of mothers

Summary Past social work studies on discrimination perceived by immigrants mainly concerned the negative impacts of social dislocation on the immigrants, such as their loss of social support, devaluation of education and work skills, and acculturative stress. Important features of family efficacy, notably the immigrant’s perceived control over the work–care management and household conditions are yet to be considered in any conceptual model of perceived discrimination. Findings The present study tested both the social dislocation and family efficacy models for 372 Chinese migrant mothers living in low-income communities of Hong Kong. While path analyses supported both models, the family efficacy model had substantially higher power in explaining perceived discrimination. Application Implications for social service practitioners and policy advocates to promote the life chances of poor migrant mothers are discussed.

Child Maltreatment Turns 20

Child Maltreatment (CM) turns 20 this year. The last 20 years have seen excellent progress regarding our understanding of the scope, causes, and consequences of maltreatment and in prevention, intervention, and policy efforts to combat the problem. Important work has been conducted to understand the nature of victimization (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner, 2007; Finkelhor, Ormrod, Turner, & Holt, 2009) and the impact of early maltreatment on neurobiological development in young children (Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009). Longitudinal studies have documented the long-term impacts of maltreatment on a range of social, psychological, and behavioral outcomes (Widom, 1999; Widom, Schuck, & White, 2006; Wilson & Widom, 2011), and we are beginning to understand how maltreatment and other early adverse experiences can impact physical health outcomes (Bentley & Widom, 2009; Norman et al., 2012). Strong evidence-based practices have been identified to treat child trauma, improve parenting skills, address sexual behavior problems among youth, and improve the development of youth in foster care. Many evidencebased programs are being broadly disseminated, and some large-scale field trials have shown impacts on important maltreatment outcomes, such as recidivism (Chaffin, Hecht, Bard, Silovsky, & Beasley, 2012). We are also learning how to help governments and communities successfully adopt and implement evidence-based practices (Brown et al., 2014; Glisson, Dukes, & Green, 2006). A recent federal policy initial initiative provided 1.5 billion dollars for evidence-based early childhood programs to prevent maltreatment and promote children’s physical, social, and emotional health (http://mchb.hrsa.gov/ programs/homevisiting/). Rates of maltreatment are on the decline (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2014). Clearly, we headed in the right direction and making a difference. Yet, there is much, much more to do. CM was conceived as the official journal of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children to provide its members with an outlet for in-depth rigorous empirical research and keep them informed on the latest findings relevant to their work. In the inaugural issue, Chaffin and Reid (1996) articulated a number of goals for CM that would serve as guiding principles. These goals include (1) taking a rigorous data-based approach to understanding a broad range of issues related to child maltreatment, (2) encouraging interdisciplinary responses to maltreatment including interdisciplinary research, (3) attending to issues of culture and diversity in the study of maltreatment, and (4) looking at the big picture of child maltreatment research to develop a vision for advancing prevention and intervention efforts. Although the field has advanced a great deal over the past 20 years, these goals remain highly relevant and will continue to serve as guiding principles for CM. Since its inception, CM has achieved great prominence in the field. Its impact factor has risen steadily over the years to 2.71 in 2013, making CM the second most cited journal in two categories, Social Work and Family Studies according to the 2013 Journal Citation Reports published by Thomson Reuters. This is a strong indicator that researchers and practitioners are turning to CM to inform and guide their work. Continuing the excellence of CM will require a focus on innovative but rigorous research that is appropriately contextualized and relevant to real-world problems. Accomplishing this in the field of child maltreatment requires a multidisciplinary perspective, one that includes scholars from social work, psychology, psychiatry, public health, neuroscience, law and law enforcement, medicine, nursing, economics, and other disciplines. CM does well in this regard already but can do better. Feiring and Zielinski’s (2011) analysis showed that, initially, authorship of CM publications early on came mostly from the field of Psychology but that over time, authors from Social Work and Public Health have made steady gains. My hope is that this trend continues, and we see even greater diversity in CM’s authorship over the next several years. A top priority for CM will be maintaining its focus on publishing highly rigorous research. Generally, rigorous research is defined as work that is theoretically based and uses study designs that maximize the confidence that the observed effects were due to the hypothesized causes. This is also known as internal validity and will continue to be of utmost importance for guiding publication decisions in CM. However, it is also critical to attend to external validity or the extent to which research findings are generalizable to real-world settings.

A social work study on measuring adherence to religious values

Article history: Received July 18, 2014 Accepted 8 December 2014 Available online December 9 2014 This study aims to investigate the effects of demographic characteristics, including gender, marital status, level of education and age on adherence to religious values among young people in city of Shahin Dezh and Takab, located in province of West Azerbaijan, Iran in 2014. The study has accomplished between two groups of Turk and Kurd with the population of 85,000 and 89,000, respectively. The study uses a sample of 20 and 30 people from Turkish and Kurdish tribes, respectively, and uses t-student test as well as regression analysis to examine different hypotheses of the survey. The results show that there was a meaningful difference among various variables of gender, marital status, education level and age in adherence to religious values among the youth who live in this city. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 4 © 201 Religious values Social work study Adherence Age Gender

Action research in the field of social work

In social work studies, emerged the idea of a difference between the so-called traditionalistic and actionalistic methodology, and so-called traditional and action research, based primarily on a different understanding of the aims of research. According to the representatives, of the so-called actionalistic methodology, action research in social work should be a supporting instrument of social action, whose role is to direct and orient that action. The main purpose of action research in social work is to serve as an instrument, a medium to solving people's problems. This means that every action research must have a detailed plan of action, implementation and evaluation of the effects of research. Action research in social work can be divided according to several criteria. The standard classification comprises: 1) action research focused on various situations of 'expressed social needs', 2) action research directed at providing social help i.e. expert research. The more relevant classification of action research in social work is as follows: a) scientific methodological research, which can be diagnostic and prognostic research and expert research and b) methodical research, which can be therapy action research and expert action research. The aim of action research in social work is to alter the situation being researched, not only from the standpoint of society i.e. the social worker, but also from the standpoint of the client in trouble.

Is the Scientific Method Adaptable to the Study of Social Work?: A Focus on the Comparative Study of Cultural Differences

Is the Scientific Method Adaptable to the Study of Social Work?: A Focus on the Comparative Study of Cultural Differences

Journal of Japanese Society for the Study of Social Work No.31 Contents

Journal of Japanese Society for the Study of Social Work No.31 Contents

Journal of Japanese Society for the Study of Social Work No.30 Contents

Journal of Japanese Society for the Study of Social Work No.30 Contents

Survivors of slavery: modern-day slave narratives

This anthology shapes a twenty-first-century narrative that many believe died with the end of slavery in the Americas. Organized around such issues as the need for work, the punishment of defiance, and the move toward activism, the collection isolates the causes, mechanisms, and responses to slavery that allow the phenomenon to endure. Enhancing scholarship in women's studies, sociology, criminology, law, social work, and literary studies, the text establishes a common trajectory of vulnerability, enslavement, captivity, escape, and recovery, creating an invaluable resource for activists, scholars, legislators, and service providers.

A Study of Social Work in General Hospitals in Iran and Designing a Model for Social Work Services

Background: <b>S</b>ocial work services are multilateral services for dimensions of prevention, social worker are a professional people who work with patient in hospital, the aims of their works are psycho-social health. Objectives: The goal of this research is to study how social work services are provided by hospitals and offer a pattern of social work services at Iranian general hospital. Materials and Methods: The research work has been conducted in two qualitative and quantitative methods. In the quantitative study, the researcher has used a questionnaire while in the qualitative section social work sections of hospitals have been studies using a case study method. The questionnaires were sent to 552 social workers and in the case study sector seven general hospitals based in Tehran, Shiraz, Semnan, Hormuzgan, Zahedan, North Khorasan and Lorestan were chosen as samples. The operational pattern has been designed on the basis of Delphi method. Results: The findings of the research indicate that social work headquarters have had a weak performance in introducing social work as a specialized profession. Their performance in establishing relationship with scientific centers has been evaluated as weak. The findings also show that these headquarters do not use social work in executive units, training courses for augmenting the scientific knowledge of social workers are inefficient, the description of duties of social workers at hospitals cannot meet the demands of visitors, nor do they correspond to the professional and scientific principles of social work, there is no sufficient support for social work and there is no enough supervision over their work. Conclusions: The duties of social workers have been defined in the three domains of psychosocial health, psychosocial treatment and psychosocial rehabilitation.